India’s annual kite-flying competition turned deadly this year as competitors used specially-coated strings to disable their opponents kites. 

Police say six people were killed in the Indian state of Gujarat during the January 14 festival after their throats were sliced by glass-coated kite strings. 

Three children, including a two-year-old baby, were among those killed after the glass-encrusted razor-sharp strings—used by “kite fighters” participating in the Uttarayan festival—got entangled around their necks and slit their throats. 

As thousands of mostly young revelers across different districts of the state flocked to open fields and rooftops during the festival and flew their kites toward the sky, at least 176 people also got injured by the strings and falls from the high vantage points, Gujarat police reported. 

While flying kites, fighters often engage in a type of aerial combat, attempting to slice the kite strings of rivals with their own. During these fights, the strings sometimes swing closer to the ground or get entangled on trees and electrical poles, sometimes causing accidents like those that took place in Gujarat. 

Traditionally, kite strings were made of cotton threads. But in recent years, Indian kite fighters have been using sharp nylon or synthetic strings coated with powdered glass called Chinese manjha — Chinese string, in Hindi — that is almost exclusively made in India. Manjha, which originated in China, does not break easily. 

In the Gujarat city of Bhavnagar, Kirti Thakur, a 2-year-old girl was riding on a scooter with her father when a dangling kite string wrapped around her neck. The string penetrated even deeper when the father tried to remove it. She died in the hospital a day later. 

A 3-year-old girl identified only as Kismat was walking with her mother when a kite string struck her neck and slit her throat. She died on the way to the hospital. 

A week after the festival, Gujarat Police reported that all those killed and injured in the festival were struck by manjha. 

Illegal 

Manjha has been banned in India since 2017, and anyone caught selling or using the killer string faces fines of up to 100,000 rupees ($1,230) and jail terms of up to five years. Beyond police raids targeting manjha sellers, the ban is rarely enforced. 

Despite the stiff penalties, usage remains widespread, especially by young people during kite-flying season and festivals. 

Muthupandian Palanisamy, a Chennai-based animal welfare activist, say it is possible that manjha kills or injures thousands of birds annually. 

“When they fly into the Chinese manjha, [the] kite strings, they cause deep gashes to their wings, necks and legs. Often, they fall on the ground with their injuries and become immobile,” Palanisamy told VOA. “Rarely [does] a bird happen to receive emergency treatment for its injuries, and in many cases, they die eventually. 

“The police usually register human injuries or deaths caused by the kite strings, but rarely the injuries or deaths of wild birds are properly kept track of in India,” he added. “There is no doubt that thousands of birds get injured by the killer kite strings.”

Many locals say it is difficult to put a stop to manjha’s use in India. 

“You can get Chinese manjha everywhere in India,” said Kruti Desai, a teacher in Surat, Gujarat. “They are available in underground markets across the country, in cities, small towns and even villages. One can also buy it online. 

“Every year, Chinese manjha is killing dozens of people and an unknown number of birds in India,” she added. “There must be stricter police surveillance, enforcing the ban on this killer string.”
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Muhammad Sabir, a child who made a living from collecting scrap paper, now leads ‘Slumabad,’ a school for poor kids living in the slums of Lahore, Pakistan. VOA’s Saman Khan brings us the story, narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
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Samira Gawhari was studying law at Kabul University when the Taliban took power in 2021. Because of Taliban laws, she can no longer attend university, but she says she is determined to finish her degree. VOA’s Afghan Service spoke with her about her future in this story narrated by Nazrana Ghaffar Yousufzai.
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Malala Yousafzai says that the world should come together to support the fundamental rights of Afghan women.

The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate said in an interview with VOA that the people of Afghanistan, Muslim countries and the international community should stand with Afghan women in their fight for their rights to education and work.

After seizing power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban have steadily imposed repressive restrictions on women in the country, including banning them from secondary education, from working in the government, from traveling long-distance without a close male relative and from going to parks and gyms.

Last month, the group banned women from universities and working with non-government organizations.

WATCH: Afghan Girls Cling to Dreams Amid Education Ban

On the eve of International Education Day, Yousafzai told Nazrana Ghaffar Yousufzai of VOA’s Afghan Service that the Taliban’s measures are “against Islam” and she called on Muslim countries to raise their voices against it.

This interview has been translated from Pashto and edited for length and clarity.

VOA: What do you expect the international community to do on this International Education Day to guarantee Afghan women’s fundamental right to education?

Nobel Peace Laureate Malala Yousafzai: I have a message to all the people, not to stay silent. Stand with the Afghan women. Afghan women are raising their voices on the global stage. They are coming out to the streets in Afghanistan, raising their voices for peace, equality, and justice. Stand with them and raise your voices for their rights to education and work.

The fathers and brothers of Afghan girls should also come out to support their rights. We all know that barring women from education is against our culture and religion. In addition, at the international level, leaders need to play their role and stand with Afghan women. Muslim nations should get together for Afghan women and raise their voices for the protection of women [in Afghanistan]. It is because we all know that in Islam, education is an obligation for all human beings. It is an obligation for women. Our religion has taught us to seek education and knowledge, and for that, Muslim countries must raise their voices that this ban is against Islam. International organizations and leaders should come together and stand with the Afghan people.

VOA: How do you see the future of a nation where women are barred from education and their access to almost everything is limited?

Yousafzai: Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls are deprived of the right to education. Women are not allowed to work. Women are deprived of their fundamental human and Islamic rights. I stand with my Afghan sisters. On this day when we celebrate International Day of Education, when we talk about education, we must think about Afghan girls’ education right. If Afghan women are deprived of education, it doesn’t only harm them but also the economy, peace, and prosperity of Afghanistan. The U.N. studies show that the ban on education is causing $5.4 billion to Afghanistan’s economy. So, this harms peace and the people of Afghanistan. We must not forget Afghan women on this day.

VOA: What is your message to Afghan women during these challenging times?

Yousafzai: I stand with my Afghan sisters. I salute their courage. They raise their voices for their rights. I hope they will get their right to education, employment, and political participation. I also hope that the international community will stand by them.

Roshan Noorzai from VOA’s Pashto Service contributed to this report. 
…

After assuming power in August 2021, the Taliban government issued various decrees limiting the rights of Afghan women. These include bans on women’s employment and education and traveling more than 70 kilometers without a male relative. VOA’s Nazar ul Islam has more from Kabul, Afghanistan, in this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
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Much of Pakistan was left without power for several hours on Monday morning as an energy-saving measure by the government backfired. The outage spread panic and raised questions about the cash-strapped government’s handling of the country’s economic crisis. 

Electricity was turned off across Pakistan during low usage hours overnight to conserve fuel across the country, officials said, leaving technicians unable to boot up the system all at once after daybreak.

The outage was reminiscent of a massive blackout in January 2021, attributed at the time to a technical fault in the country’s power generation and distribution system.

Monday’s nationwide breakdown left many people without drinking water as pumps are powered by electricity. Schools, hospitals, factories and shops were without power amid the harsh winter weather.

Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir told local media on Monday that engineers were working to restore the power supply across the country, including in the capital of Islamabad, and tried to reassure the nation that power would be fully restored within the next 12 hours.

According to the minister, during winter, electricity usage typically goes down overnight — unlike summer months when Pakistanis turn to air conditioning, seeking a respite from the heat. 

“As an economic measure, we temporarily shut down our power generation systems” on Sunday night, Dastagir said.

When engineers tried to turn the systems back on, a “fluctuation in voltage” was observed, which “forced engineers to shut down the power grid” stations one by one, he added.

He insisted that this was not a major crisis, and that electricity was being restored in phases. In many places and key businesses and institutions, including hospitals, military and government facilities, backup generators kicked in.

Karachi, the country’s largest city and economic hub, was also without power Monday, as were other key cities such as Quetta, Peshawar and Lahore.

In Lahore, a closing notice was posted on Orange Line metro stations, with rail workers guarding the sites and trains parked on the rails. It was unknown when the metro system would be up restored.

Imran Rana, a spokesman for Karachi’s power supply company, said the government’s priority was to “restore power to strategic facilities, including hospitals,” airports and other places.

Pakistan gets at least 60% of its electricity from fossil fuels, while nearly 27% of the electricity is generated by hydropower. The contribution of nuclear and solar power to the nation’s grid is about 10%.

Pakistan is grappling with one of the country’s worst economic crisis in recent years amid dwindling foreign exchange reserves. This has compelled the government earlier this month to order shopping malls and markets closed by 8:30 p.m. for energy conservation purposes.

Talks are underway with the International Monetary Fund to soften some conditions on Pakistan’s $6 billion bailout, which the government thinks will trigger further inflation hikes. The IMF released the last crucial tranche of $1.1 billion to Islamabad in August.

Since then, talks between the two parties have oscillated due to Pakistan’s reluctance to impose new tax measures.
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For six years, Pravinbhai Parmar’s farm in Gujarat state in western India has been lined with rice, wheat and solar panels.   

The 36-year-old is among a handful of farmers in his native Dhundi village who have been using solar power to irrigate crops.   

“I was spending nearly 50,000 rupees ($615) every year to water my crops,” said Parmar. “With solar I spend nothing.”  

Parmar also sells the excess electricity to his state’s grid, earning an average of 4,000 rupees ($50) a month.   

“It’s a win-win in every way,” he said.  

Thousands of farmers have been encouraged to take up solar power for irrigation in the agriculture-rich state as India aims to reach ‘net zero’ by 2070. But livelihoods powered by clean energy are major outliers in the country that’s the third-largest emitter of planet-warming gases in the world, and last year announced its biggest-ever auction for coal mines.   

Coal’s share in producing electricity for Gujarat fell from 85% to 56% in the last six years, according to analysis by London-based energy think tank Ember. The share of renewable energy for the state grew from 9% to 28% in the same period.   

But Gujarat is just one of four of India’s 28 states that met their renewable energy targets for 2022. Most states have installed less than 50% of their targets and some states such as West Bengal have installed only 10% of their target.   

Nationwide fossil fuels generate more than 70% of India’s electricity and have been doing so for decades. Coal is by far the largest share of dirty fuels. Renewable energy currently contributes about 10% of India’s electricity needs. 

From 2001 to 2021, India installed 168 gigawatts of coal-fired generation, nearly double what it added in solar and wind power combined, according to an analysis of Ember data. India’s federal power ministry estimates that its electricity demand will grow up to 6% every year for the next decade.   

“The challenge of reducing the share of coal in the electricity generation mix is particularly acute because you are dealing with a sector that is growing rapidly,” said Thomas Spencer, energy analyst at the Paris-based International Energy Agency.   

Spencer said India’s quickly developing economy and growing electricity consumption per capita is causing rising demand. 

“Historically, countries that have achieved substantial and rapid transitions away from coal-fired power tend to have had either slowly growing or stagnant or even slightly declining electricity demand,” he added. 

A report by the Global Energy Monitor ranks India among the top seven countries globally for prospective renewable power. The planned buildout of 76 gigawatts of solar and wind power by 2025 will avoid the use of almost 78 million tons of coal annually and could lead to savings of up to 1.6 trillion rupees ($19.5 billion) per year. 

India missed its target to install 175 gigawatts of renewable energy to its overall power production by 2022. Experts say that to meet its 2030 renewable energy target of installing a total of 450 gigawatts, India needs to build out clean energy at a far greater rate than it is doing now. 

The Indian government has repeatedly defended its use of coal and its energy transition strategy, stating that the fuel is necessary for the nation’s energy security. Coal India limited, a government-owned company, is the largest state-owned coal producer in the world. It’s responsible for about 82% of the total coal produced in India. 

In November last year, the Indian government announced its biggest ever auction for coal mines, inviting bids for 141 mines spread across 12 states in the country. The government says the additional mines will contribute to its target of producing 1 billion tons of coal by April 2024. 

Analysts say multiple obstacles include acquiring land for clean energy projects in part due to resistance from local communities. Longstanding contracts with coal plants also make it easier for state-run electricity companies to buy coal power instead of clean power. 

As of December 2022, Indian state-owned electricity distribution companies owed power generators $3.32 billion in overdue payments. Their poor financial health has dampened their ability to invest in clean energy projects, analysts say. 

Building energy storage, enacting more progressive policies — such as the $2.6 billion government scheme that encourages making components required to produce solar energy — and ensuring these policies are being implemented is essential to speed up a move toward renewables, analysts say.

“New laws such as the energy conservation bill as well as updated mandates issued by the federal government that make it necessary for electricity companies to purchase renewables provide hope,” said Madhura Joshi, an energy analyst at the climate think tank E3G. “At the end of the day what is needed is speeding up the installation of renewables and associated infrastructure.” 

She added: “It’s great that India has a 2070 net zero target, but changes need to happen now for us to achieve this. We must build out our renewables capacity at a great speed.” 

Experts say that electricity distribution companies need to allow for more rooftop solar installations even if it results in short-term economic losses for them. Investing in modernizing and building new wind energy projects will also speed up the transition, analysts said. 

“Ultimately in India, renewable energy is a highly cost-effective technology. The perception that coal is cheap is changing,” said Spencer. 

The price of renewable energy has plummeted. The cost of solar power has dropped roughly sixfold from 12 rupees (14 cents) per kilowatt-hour in 2011 to 2.5 rupees (0.03 cents) per kilowatt-hour in recent years. 

Aditya Lolla, an energy policy analyst at Ember, is optimistic for India’s clean energy future, saying renewables are “at the cusp” of skyrocketing. He believes battery storage for renewables to provide uninterrupted electricity and clean fuels — such as green hydrogen — will grow at a rapid pace. 

“Storage technology for clean energy as well as green hydrogen is expected to become affordable in the coming years,” Lolla said. “India is betting big on that.” 
…

In the remote Tharparkar desert of Pakistan’s Sindh province, the ratio of boys and girls in school remains uneven, but one young girl is determined to defy the odds. VOA’s Sidra Dar brings us the story of the teenage girl whose goal is to become a doctor. Camera - Khalil Ahmed.
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Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have arrested five men, including two Chinese nationals, for allegedly trying to smuggle an estimated 1,000 metric tons of lithium-bearing rocks out of the country.

The arrests and the seizure of the rocks were made in the eastern Afghan border city of Jalalabad.

The Chinese nationals and their Afghan collaborators were planning to illegally transport the “precious stones” to China via Pakistan, said Taliban intelligence officials in comments aired Sunday by Afghan television channels.

Mohammad Rasool Aqab, a senior official at the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, estimated the rocks “contained up to 30% of lithium.” They were “secretly” extracted from Nuristan and Kunar, two of the several Afghan provinces along the border with Pakistan, he added.

The Islamist rulers have banned extraction and sale of lithium since reclaiming power in Afghanistan in August 2021 after all U.S. and NATO troops withdrew from the country.

Afghanistan reportedly sits on an estimated $1 trillion worth of rare earth minerals, including huge deposits of lithium, but decades of war have prevented the development of Afghan mining.

Lithium is a key component in rechargeable batteries and it is used in clean technologies to tackle climate change, pushing global demand for the metal to soaring levels.

The Taliban government has not yet been formally recognized by the world over human rights concerns, particularly its restrictions on women’s access to work and education.

The United States and the Western nations at large imposed economic sanctions on Afghanistan immediately after the Taliban took control.

The Islamist group has increased coal exports to Pakistan in recent months, helping them generate much-needed revenues to fund Afghan budgetary needs and pay public sector employee salaries.
…

India’s government said it has blocked videos and tweets sharing links to a BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role during deadly 2002 sectarian riots, calling it “hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage.”

The British broadcaster’s program alleges that the Hindu nationalist Modi, premier of Gujarat state at the time, ordered police to turn a blind eye to the orgy of violence there that left at least 1,000 people dead, most of them minority Muslims.

Kanchan Gupta, an adviser to the government, tweeted Saturday that the Indian government used emergency powers under IT rules to block the documentary and its clips from being shared on social media.

“Videos sharing @BBCWorld hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage, disguised as ‘documentary,’ on @YouTube and tweets sharing links to the BBC documentary have been blocked under India’s sovereign laws and rules,” he said.

Orders were also issued to Twitter to block over 50 tweets with links to YouTube videos.

Both YouTube and Twitter have complied with the instructions, Gupta said.

Neither firm was available for comment Sunday.

Several tweets with clips of the documentary, India: The Modi Question, which has not been aired in the world’s largest democracy, were still available Sunday.

The 2002 riots in Gujarat began after 59 Hindu pilgrims were killed in a fire on a train. Thirty-one Muslims were convicted of criminal conspiracy and murder over that incident.

The BBC documentary cited a previously classified British foreign ministry report quoting unnamed sources saying that Modi met senior police officers and “ordered them not to intervene” in the anti-Muslim violence by right-wing Hindu groups that followed.

The violence was “politically motivated” and the aim “was to purge Muslims from Hindu areas,” the foreign ministry report said.

The “systematic campaign of violence has all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing” and was impossible “without the climate of impunity created by the state Government … Narendra Modi is directly responsible,” it concluded.

Travel ban

Modi, who ran Gujarat from 2001 until his election as prime minister in 2014, was briefly subject to a travel ban by the United States over the violence.

A special investigative team appointed by the Indian Supreme Court to probe the role of Modi and others in the violence said in 2012 it did not find any evidence to prosecute the then chief minister.

Gupta said multiple ministries had examined the documentary and “found it casting aspersions on the authority and credibility of Supreme Court of India, sowing divisions among various Indian communities, and making unsubstantiated allegations.”

“Accordingly, @BBCWorld’s vile propaganda was found to be undermining the sovereignty and integrity of India, and having the potential to adversely impact India’s friendly relations with foreign countries as also public order within the country,” he said.
…

When the din of Pakistan’s most notorious weapons market becomes overwhelming, arms dealer Muhammad Jahanzeb slinks away from his stall, past colleagues test-firing machine guns, to read in the hush of the local library.

“It’s my hobby, my favorite hobby, so sometimes I sneak off,” the 28-year-old told AFP after showing off his inventory of vintage rifles, forged assault weapons and a menacing array of burnished switchblades.

“I’ve always wished that we would have a library here, and my wish has come true.”

The town of Darra Adamkhel is part of the deeply conservative tribal belt where decades of militancy and drug-running in the surrounding mountains earned it a reputation as a “wild west” waypoint between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It has long been known for its black-market bazaars stocked with forged American rifles, replica revolvers and AK-47 copies.

But a short walk away, a town library is thriving by offering titles including Virginia Woolf’s classic Mrs. Dalloway, installments in the teenage vampire romance series Twilight, and Life, Speeches and Letters by Abraham Lincoln.

“Initially we were discouraged. People asked, ‘What is the use of books in a place like Darra Adamkhel? Who would ever read here?’ ” recalled founder Raj Muhammad, 36.

“We now have more than 500 members.”

Tribal transformation

Literacy rates in the tribal areas, which were semiautonomous until 2018 when they merged with the neighboring province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, are among the lowest in Pakistan as a result of poverty, patriarchal values, inter-clan conflicts and a lack of schools.

But attitudes are slowly changing, believes soft-spoken volunteer librarian Shafiullah Afridi, 33: “Especially among the younger generation, who are now interested in education instead of weapons.”

“When people see young people in their neighborhood becoming doctors and engineers, others also start sending their children to school,” said Afridi, who has curated a ledger of 4,000 titles in three languages — English, Urdu and Pashto.

Despite the background noise of gunsmiths at work nearby, the atmosphere is genteel as readers sip endless rounds of green tea while they muse over texts.

However, Afridi struggles to strictly enforce a “no weapons allowed” policy during his shift.

One young arms dealer saunters up to the pristinely painted salmon-colored library, leaving his AK-47 at the door but keeping his sidearm strapped on his waist, and joins a gaggle of bookworms browsing the shelves.

Alongside tattered Tom Clancy, Stephen King and Michael Crichton paperbacks, there are more weighty tomes detailing the history of Pakistan and India and guides for civil service entrance exams, as well as a wide selection of Islamic teachings.

Education, not arms

Libraries are rare in Pakistan’s rural areas, and the few that exist in urban centers are often poorly stocked and infrequently used.

In Darra Adamkhel, it began as a solitary reading room in 2018 stocked with Muhammad’s personal collection, above one of the hundreds of gun shops in the central bazaar.

“You could say we planted the library on a pile of weapons,” said Muhammad, a prominent local academic, poet and teacher hailing from a long line of gunsmiths.

Muhammad paid 2,500 rupees ($11) for the monthly rent, but bibliophiles struggled to concentrate amid the whirring of lathes and hammering of metal as bootleg armorers plied their trade downstairs.

The project swiftly outgrew the confines of a single room and was shifted a year later to a purpose-built single-story building funded by the local community on donated land.

“There was once a time when our young men adorned themselves with weapons like a kind of jewelry,” said Irfanullah Khan, 65, patriarch of the family who gifted the plot.

“But men look beautiful with the jewel of knowledge. Beauty lies not in arms but in education,” said Khan, who also donates his time alongside his son Afridi.

For the general public a library card costs 150 rupees ($0.66) a year, while students enjoy a discount rate of 100 rupees ($0.44), and youngsters flit in and out of the library even during school breaks.

One in 10 members is female — a figure remarkably high for the tribal areas — though once they reach their teenage years and are sequestered in the homes, male family members collect books on their behalf.

Nevertheless, on their midmorning break, schoolgirls Manahil Jahangir, 9, and Hareem Saeed, 5, join the men towering over them as they pore over books.

“My mother’s dream is for me to become a doctor,” Saeed said shyly. “If I study here, I can make her dream come true.”
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Every morning, in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Kabul, Afghanistan, girls secretly gather in a house to study, something that millions of girls around the world do freely.

As the global community marks International Day of Education on Tuesday, Afghanistan is the only country where girls are forbidden to attend school. Calling the restriction on learning and teaching as an attack on human dignity, UNESCO has dedicated this year’s observation to Afghan girls and women.  

Shortly after regaining power in August 2021, the Taliban closed most of the country’s secondary schools for girls, barring millions from getting an education after sixth grade. Nearly 500 days later, the ban persists, despite international calls for reversal.

While most public and private schools for girls in Afghanistan remain empty, underground schools are spreading.

Ray of light

The secret school in Kabul is part of a network of eight across five cities. The school is supported by SRAK, an Afghan organization that, according to its website, works in areas highly affected by the school ban. Srak means “the first ray of morning light” in Pashto.

Parasto, who requested to use only her first name for security reasons, is among its founders.

She told VOA that soon after the Taliban took control of the country, she received calls from teachers asking for help in setting up underground schools. She had experience in the education sector in President Ashraf Ghani’s government and sprang into action.

Setting up the schools is not difficult, she said, as “women and the children themselves are coming to us and asking for help.”

Working her contacts, Parasto helped turn basements, living rooms and bedrooms into schools for teachers and students willing to risk everything for an education.

Rahila, a former math teacher who also requested to use only her first name for security reasons, is a volunteer at the school.

She said she went into a deep depression when the Taliban closed the girls’ schools, but then her neighbors started asking for help with math.

“I realized that the students and I are necessary for each other,” she said. “We both gave hope to each other.”

Soon, she was running out of space in her house because of the growing number of students.

That’s when she met Parasto, who helped her rent a large room in a Kabul house where Rahila and two other educators teach math, English, sciences and other subjects to nearly 100 girls for three hours a day.

Eighteen-year-old Kamila is one of Rahila’s students. She likes chemistry and English and dreams of becoming a defense attorney. Without the ban, she would be finishing high school soon. But now, she is rereading material from previous grades to avoid a break in learning.

“I am studying so that my future is bright and orderly. And [I will] not be illiterate like my mother,” she said.

Nearly 250 women who were affected by the Taliban’s ban on education in the 1990s are also learning to read and write in these underground schools.

Education is free in the underground schools, as most families cannot afford tuition. SRAK members and supporters pay for rent and supplies, such as notebooks and pens.

Taliban stance

Afghanistan’s de facto Taliban rulers claim the educational material and environment are not in line with the country’s cultural values and Islamic laws. The regime has consistently ignored international calls to resume educating girls.

In December 2022, the Taliban extended their gender-based education ban to women in universities.

Rejecting the international pressure, Neda Mohammad Nadim, the Taliban’s minister of higher education, told a local gathering that religious laws will be implemented “even if they sanction us, use an atomic bomb on us or even if they come back for another war.”

In the 17 months since taking control, the regime has failed to gain global recognition, largely due to the educational restrictions on girls and women.

Defiance and despair

Despite the possibility of arrest and death, Rahila said the teachers and students attend the underground schools because “the biggest fear for us was the death of our soul and emotions.”

Owners of homes where the schools operate know to brush off curious Taliban guards who often question them about activities on their property.

To avoid attention, the girls are told to come and leave in pairs and not bring books.

“We leave our books at home and our booklets in the classroom. If we have homework, we write it on a piece of paper and put it in our pocket with our pen,” Kamila said.

As the network of underground schools expands, it is unclear how girls like Kamila will acquire a high school diploma, or how long they will be able to continue studying.

There was a time in Afghanistan when girls dreamed of becoming doctors, scientists or engineers, but now just getting a high school diploma is a struggle, SRAK’s Parasto said. “Look at the dreams that we have killed inside our hearts, inside our minds.”
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Militants attacked a police checkpoint in northern Pakistan late Saturday, killing two officers and wounding another, authorities said.

Police officer Tariq Khan said the gunmen fled after shooting three officers at the post in Zardad Dahri, which is in the Charsadda district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. He said two of the officers died before reaching the hospital while the third was being treated.

The shooting came two days after a similar attack in Khyber district that killed three police officers and wounded two.

No one claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack.

The outlawed Pakistani Taliban militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, claimed responsibility for the Khyber attack. The group is separate from but allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban.

The TTP restarted attacks in recent months on security forces in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwestern Baluchistan provinces, both bordering Afghanistan, after its talks with the government failed.
…

Abdul Wasi Safi carefully protected documents detailing his time as an Afghan soldier who worked with the U.S. military as he made the monthslong, treacherous journey from Brazil to the United States-Mexico border.

He fled Afghanistan fearing retribution from the Taliban following the August 2021 American withdrawal and hoped the paperwork would secure his asylum in the U.S. Despite thick jungles, raging rivers and beatings, he kept those documents safe.

But after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border near Eagle Pass, Texas, in September, Wasi Safi was arrested on a federal immigration charge. He remains jailed at a detention center in Eden, Texas, and fears his asylum claim may be denied.

Wasi Safi’s brother, attorneys, military organizations and a bipartisan group of lawmakers working to free him say his case highlights how America’s chaotic military withdrawal continues to harm Afghan citizens who helped the U.S. but were left behind.

“He tried every way possible to save these certificates in the hopes that once he … presents his appropriate documents at the southern border … he would receive a warm welcome and his service would be appreciated and recognized,” said Sami-ullah Safi, his brother.

If sent back to Afghanistan, he could be killed by the Taliban. Since the Taliban takeover, more than 100 Afghan officials and security force members have been killed, according to a United Nations report.

“It’s honestly just shameful that we’ve treated people that helped protect our country this way,” said Jennifer Cervantes, one of Wasi Safi’s immigration attorneys.

Journey to the United States

Wasi Safi, 27, had been an intelligence officer with the Afghan National Security Forces, providing U.S. forces with information on terrorists, said Sami-ullah Safi, 29, who goes by Sami.

Sami Safi had been employed by the U.S. military as a translator since 2010, making him eligible for a special immigrant visa for interpreters and others paid by the U.S. government. The visa allowed him to move to Houston in 2015.

But Wasi Safi was not eligible for that visa because he was not employed directly by the U.S.

When American forces withdrew from Afghanistan, Wasi Safi went into hiding and learned that friends in the Afghan military had been killed by the Taliban.

He was able to get a visa for Brazil and traveled there in 2022. But he realized he wasn’t much safer as he and other migrants were beaten and robbed by gangs.

In the summer of 2022, Wasi Safi began his journey to the U.S.

When he crossed a huge river in the Darien Gap, the imposing and dangerous stretch of thick jungle between Colombia and Panama, Wasi Safi kept a backpack with his documents above his head, so they wouldn’t get wet.

When police officers in Guatemala tried to extort him and took his backpack, Wasi Safi endured their beatings until he got the documents back, according to his brother.

On his journey, Wasi Safi suffered serious injuries from beatings, including damaged front teeth and hearing loss in his right ear. Zachary Fertitta, one of his criminal defense attorneys, said Wasi Safi has not received proper medical care while in detention. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help pay for medical care if he’s released.

Sami Safi said his brother has become disillusioned since his detention, believing the documents he thought would save him are worthless.

But Fertitta said those documents show “he’s clearly an ally, was trained by our troops, worked with our troops.”

‘Willing to die for this country’

U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat, last week sent a letter to President Joe Biden, asking him to pardon Wasi Safi for his immigration-related charges. She said Thursday that his documents show he’s “an individual who obviously loved this country … and was willing to die for this country.”

Republican Congressmen Dan Crenshaw of Texas and Michael Waltz of Florida, as well as more than 20 veterans groups have also called for Wasi Safi’s freedom while his asylum claim is reviewed.

The White House declined to comment on Friday, referring questions to the Justice Department and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, which is prosecuting his case for the Justice Department, and Customs and Border Protection didn’t immediately return emails seeking comment.

During a news conference Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said he couldn’t comment on Wasi Safi’s case but that the Defense Department is “supportive of any efforts that we can make to ensure that we’re taking appropriate care of” the country’s Afghan allies.

Fertitta said Wasi Safi’s criminal case has to be resolved before his asylum claim can be considered, and he’s hoping that resolution doesn’t include a conviction, which could imperil the asylum request.

Status unclear for many

Nearly 76,000 Afghans who worked with American soldiers since 2001 as translators, interpreters and partners arrived in the U.S. on military planes after the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. But their immigration status remains unclear after Congress failed to pass a proposed law, the Afghan Adjustment Act, that would have solidified their legal residency status.

Fertitta said Wasi Safi’s case highlights the country’s “broken immigration system” and its failure to help Afghan allies.

“You have all of those things colliding at our border and it’s a very difficult problem to sort out,” Fertitta said.

Sami Safi said he remains hopeful.

“I am hoping that President Biden and those who have authority over this case step up and save his life. He has given enough sacrifice for this country. My whole family has sacrificed for this country,” he said.
…

At least six people were injured Saturday in two blasts in Jammu, the principal Indian city in a region disputed by neighboring Pakistan, police said, ahead of the arrival of Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on a cross-country march.

The blasts hit Jammu’s transport yard in the Narwal area, said regional police chief Mukesh Singh, as security has been heightened with Gandhi’s march expected to reach the city Monday.

Thousands have joined his march against “hate and division,” which aims to turn the leftist Congress party’s fortunes around after its drubbing by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in a 2019 election.

Modi wants to take control of India’s part of the Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir, hotly contested by Muslim-majority Pakistan. It has been governed almost exclusively by Muslim chief ministers.

Gandhi’s march, which has been better received by the public than expected, is scheduled to culminate in Srinagar later this month.

The first blast occurred around 0445 GMT, followed by another explosion, said another police official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

“The whole area has been cordoned off and a search operation underway,” he said.

Jaswinder Singh, who saw the first blast, said it occurred in a vehicle that was sent to a workshop for repairs.

“There was a big bang and when I came out, I saw a blast had ripped apart a car. Fifteen minutes later, there was another explosion nearby. Those injured are mostly car mechanics,” he said.   

 
…

When her husband didn’t call as expected one night last August, Syeda knew something was wrong.

Syed Fawad Ali Shah, a Pakistani journalist living in exile in Malaysia, never missed their daily call. But despite Syeda’s efforts to find answers, it has been five months since she’s heard from her husband.

Syeda’s pleas for answers from Malaysian and Pakistani authorities have largely been met with silence. “This is mental torture,” she told VOA, asking that we use only her first name.

The last time Syeda saw her husband was in the spring of 2022, when she was able to visit him in Malaysia. The last time she heard his voice was during a phone call on August 22.

The first inkling of her husband’s fate came on January 4, when Malaysian Home Affairs Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail acknowledged at a press conference that Shah had been deported to Pakistan in August, at the request of the Pakistan High Commission in Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia said Pakistani authorities contended that Shah was a police officer who was the subject of disciplinary proceedings.

Syeda, a business professor who lives and works in Pakistan, said her husband has never worked for the police.

But even with Malaysia saying the journalist had been deported, questions remain. The most obvious is: Where is Shah?

Pakistani officials have told Syeda her husband is not in the country. But media rights analysts believe Islamabad is holding him.

Attempts by VOA to seek comment from Pakistani and Malaysian officials and embassies were not successful.

A spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry told VOA’s Urdu Service in a Thursday briefing that deportations are “finalized after consultations between governments through specific channels under certain legal provisions.”

The spokesperson directed VOA’s other questions about the case to the Ministry of Information. VOA contacted the information minister via a messaging app but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Efforts to seek comment from Pakistan’s Interior Ministry and Federal Investigation Agency were also unsuccessful.

VOA also reached out to Malaysia’s home affairs and immigration ministries, and the Pakistan High Commission, but as of publication had not received a response.

Intimidation tactics

For years, Shah reported critically on Pakistan, including the country’s powerful military and intelligence agencies.

Writing for the Pakistani daily The Nation, he produced a series of investigative stories about enforced disappearances and probable links between Taliban groups and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a Pakistani intelligence agency.

Then in January 2011, the ISI abducted Shah and tortured him for months in a cellar, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said.

At that time, said Daniel Bastard, head of the Asia-Pacific desk at RSF, intelligence agencies would hold reporters for months, “just to intimidate the whole community of journalists in Pakistan.”

Shortly after Shah was released, he fled to Malaysia and applied for refugee status.

Despite the distance, Pakistan’s intelligence agencies made efforts to forcibly repatriate him, even contacting Interpol on multiple occasions, according to RSF. Interpol refused.

In December 2019, a letter stamped “ISI” was sent to his Malaysian home, the news website Free Malaysia Today reported. He had one “last opportunity” to go to an agency in Kuala Lumpur to get an emergency passport, the letter said. “If you refuse to do so then we will make a horrific example of you,” it said.

Syeda shared a screenshot of an email her husband wrote to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in 2021. In it, he wrote, “I am always afraid that I will be deported to Pakistan secretly or dramatically without informing to the UNHCR Malaysia.”

Paper trail

Analysts who spoke with VOA believe the Malaysian government likely deported Shah in error, saying the country did not have much to gain from the move.

There should be paperwork documenting Shah’s deportation, including when and how he left the country, according to Waytha Moorthy Ponnusamy, a Malaysian lawyer Syeda hired to investigate her husband’s case. But that paperwork doesn’t appear to exist, he said.

“Someone is hiding something,” Ponnusamy told VOA. “That’s the reason why we are trying to get to the bottom of it.”

Ponnusamy is among those who believe Shah was deported through an error. Still, he blames a select few Malaysian and Pakistani officials for what happened.

Syeda traveled to Malaysia in mid-December. She had wanted to travel earlier, but she was pregnant. Eventually, she said, the stress and anxiety caused by her husband’s disappearance became too much, leading to a miscarriage in October.

After arriving in Kuala Lumpur, Syeda worked with Ponnusamy to push Malaysia to reveal more information, but with no success.

Since the deportation, elections in November 2022 brought a change of power to Malaysia. Even though the officials are new, the government’s indifference is not, according to Predeep Nambiar, a journalist at Free Malaysia Today who is helping Syeda.

“The apathy — that really, frankly, pisses me off,” he told VOA. “It’s very opaque.”

In a country that ranks low on press freedom indexes, that has little freedom of information, that has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, and that does not respect the principle of non-refoulement, the Malaysian government’s indifference in this case is not surprising, Nambiar said.

Transnational repression

Shah’s disappearance underscores the lengths Islamabad will go to to muzzle its critics, analysts told VOA, as well as the dangers dissidents face, even when thousands of miles away.

Authoritarian governments have long blurred borders to “silence dissent,” according to Yana Gorokhovskaia, who researches transnational repression at Freedom House.

“There’s a whole universe in which governments cooperate to target people, or at least facilitate the targeting of people,” she told VOA.

Shah’s disappearance followed several other cases in which Pakistani exiles have been harassed and sometimes even killed.

It’s a pattern that Taha Siddiqui is acutely aware of. After barely escaping a 2018 kidnapping attempt in Islamabad, the reporter fled to France.

He still receives intimidating phone calls and messages from Pakistani officials, he said, and people affiliated with the embassy surveilled him, even checking up on him at the bar he runs in Paris. He said an American intelligence agency told him a few years ago that he was on a Pakistani “kill list.”

Pakistan’s Paris embassy did not respond to an email requesting comment.

Pakistani intelligence agencies have also harassed his family members, Siddiqui said. “They told my mother that Taha thinks that he’s safe in Paris, but no one is safe anywhere.”

He added that the disappearance of Shah has made him nervous for his own safety.

Since advocating for her husband in Malaysia, Syeda said she has received intimidating messages and calls telling her to return to Pakistan. Fearful that she would be disappeared, Syeda applied to extend her visa. The request was denied.

“It is very risky for me, but I have no other option,” she told VOA hours before she left the country. “My life is at risk but still I am going.”

A day after arriving in northern Pakistan, she told VOA that two men who said they were with ISI came to her home and instructed her to keep quiet.

“Don’t make your life difficult,” they told her, adding that her husband was not in Pakistan.

“I am worried,” she told VOA. “Please pray for me.”

VOA’s Urdu Service contributed to this report.
…

A BBC documentary that looks into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role during communal riots that wracked the western Indian state of Gujarat in 2002 has been criticized by the Indian government as a “propaganda piece” while the broadcaster has said its two-part series was “rigorously researched.”

The BBC says India: the Modi Question “examines the tensions between India’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority and explores the politics of Mr. Modi in relation to those tensions.” The first part was broadcast in Britain on Tuesday, while the second will be aired next week.

The communal riots erupted in Gujarat when Modi, who became India’s prime minister in 2014, was the state’s chief minister. More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in the violence that broke out after a train carrying Hindu pilgrims was set on fire, killing dozens.

The documentary highlights an unpublished report that the BBC said it obtained from the British Foreign Office. The report had, according to the broadcaster, raised issues over Modi’s actions during the riots and claims that he was “directly responsible” for the “climate of impunity” that enabled the violence.

“The bias, lack of objectivity and continuing colonial mindset is blatantly visible,” Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told reporters in response to questions at a press briefing Thursday. Questioning the motives behind the documentary, he said it was “designed to push a particular discredited narrative.”

“It makes us wonder about the purpose of this exercise, the agenda behind it and frankly we do not wish to dignify such efforts,” Bagchi said.

In 2012, an inquiry by India’s Supreme Court had exonerated Modi for any complicity in the riots, including charges that he had told police officers not to restrain the rioters. Last year, the top court also dismissed a petition that questioned his exoneration.

A day after the Indian government’s sharp criticism of the documentary, the BBC said in a statement that the program was “rigorously researched according to highest editorial standards.” The British broadcaster said that “a wide range of voices, witnesses and experts were approached and we have featured a range of opinions, including responses from people in the BJP [Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party].” The statement also said that it had offered the Indian government an opportunity to reply to the matters raised in the series, but the government declined.

The BBC statement said the company was “committed to highlighting important issues from around the world.”

In response to a question on the documentary by British lawmaker Imran Hussain in Parliament on Thursday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that “we don’t tolerate persecution anywhere” but added that he “did not agree with the characterization” of the Indian prime minister.
…

Pakistani women studying medicine in Afghanistan have been affected by the Taliban decision to ban women from universities. VOA’s Munaza Shaheed spoke to some of them.
…

Russia said Friday it had reached “conceptual agreements” with Pakistan on the supply of crude oil and petroleum products, noting the two sides also agreed the payments will be made in “currencies of friendly countries.”

Visiting Russian Energy Minister Nikolay Shulginov made the announcement at a news conference in Islamabad following meetings with his Pakistani counterparts at an annual intergovernmental commission on bilateral trade and economic issues.

“We have already decided to draft an agreement to sort out all the issues that we have with regard to transportation, insurance, payments and volumes. These issues are in the final stage of the agreement,” said Shulginov.

“We have already established a timeline of this agreement by the end of March,” the Russian minister added. “And we have agreed that the payments will be made in the currencies of friendly countries,” he said without elaborating.

Oil and energy account for the largest portion of Pakistan’s imports and the country is currently facing a severe balance of payments crisis. Islamabad’s foreign exchange reserves have lately depleted to about $4.6 billion, barely enough to cover three weeks of imports — mostly for oil.

“Both sides agreed that after consensus on the technical specification achieved, the oil and gas trade transactions will be structured in a way it has mutual benefit for both countries,” according to a joint statement issued Friday after the commission’s meetings.

Pakistan has also been unable to procure liquified natural gas, or LNG, from the international market to meet domestic needs because spot prices remain out of their range.

Islamabad has been trying to purchase LNG from Moscow, but Shulginov said Friday that Russia couldn’t supply the product on short-term deals.

“The LNG volumes in Russia are mostly committed to long-term contracts,” he said. “We have decided that it would be a good idea for Pakistan to approach Gazprom and Novatek, [Russia’s] two largest LNG-producing companies in late 2023 to discuss the conditions when they have spare capacities.”

Pakistan has traditionally not been a major importer of Russian oil. Most of its oil supplies come from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Pakistan’s junior oil minister, Musadik Malik, was quoted by Russian and local media on Friday as saying that his country annually purchases about 70 million barrels of crude oil and would like to import 35% of it from Russia. 

 
…

Sri Lanka has moved closer to securing a crucial $2.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund after India extended financing assurances that Colombo needs from its major foreign creditors to get the bailout package. 

The IMF loan is critical for the tiny island country to begin a slow recovery process from its worst economic crisis in decades. 

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar announced that the ministry would facilitate the IMF loan Friday in Colombo, where he met President Ranil Wickremesinghe and other senior Sri Lankan ministers.    

“India decided not to wait on others, but to do what we believe is right. We extended financing assurances to the IMF to clear the way for Sri Lanka to move forward,” Jaishankar said in a statement. “Our expectation is that this will not only strengthen Sri Lanka’s position but ensure that all bilateral creditors are dealt with equally.”  

India is the first of Sri Lanka’s major creditors to agree to restructuring the country’s debt. Colombo needs the same assurances from China, its largest lender, to clear the way for the disbursement of the loan, which the IMF had agreed to grant in August but which remains contingent on the support of its lenders.   

Sri Lankan officials expressed optimism that they will also get Beijing’s backing soon.  

“We can say that discussions with China are at the final stage and we expect their assurances in the next few days,” Sri Lanka’s deputy treasury secretary, Priyantha Ratnayake, told reporters. “Once China also gives assurances soon, then Sri Lanka will work to get [IMF] approval as soon as possible.”  

Sri Lanka went virtually bankrupt last year as it grappled with severe foreign exchange shortages to pay either for essential imports or its foreign creditors. Since then, it has grappled with runaway inflation of food and fuel prices. It also suspended repayment of $7 billion in foreign debt due last year.  

The Indian foreign minister also expressed New Delhi’s commitment to increase investment flows to hasten Sri Lanka’s economic recovery.

“India will encourage greater investments in the Sri Lankan economy, especially in core areas like energy, tourism, and infrastructure,” Jaishankar said.   

India has extended assistance of about $4 billion since Sri Lanka’s economy sank. “For us, it was an issue of the neighborhood first and not leaving a partner to fend for themselves,” he said. 

The two countries are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding for a renewable power project for three islands in Sri Lanka. 

Sri Lanka, which will have to implement stringent reforms to get the IMF loan, has raised taxes and tightened government spending. It has also announced deep cuts in its defense expenditure, saying it will slash its army by one third.  

Political stability has returned to the country after it was rocked by widespread citizen protests that led to the resignation of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was widely blamed for the crisis.  

The severe fuel and food shortages have also eased and tourists are returning to the county, helping the recovery of its tourist-dependent economy. But the dramatic rise in the cost of living continues to pose a challenge to millions in the country. 
…

From regulations on what can be covered to rules on where women can work, journalists say it is increasingly difficult to report in Afghanistan.

Restrictions on media “increased in the past year,” said Dawood Mubarak Oglu, a reporter who covers security and politics for the independent media group Salam Watandar Network.

Oglu told Voice of America it is hard to cover his reporting beat because the Taliban “don’t let journalists cover security issues, such as explosions and suicide attacks.”

“One can only report what the Taliban want to be covered,” the Kabul-based reporter said. “We have to wait for the government statements.”

When the Taliban seized power in August 2021, they said the media would be “free and independent.”

But a month later, new rules for media were imposed that watchdogs and journalists say amount to censorship.

Additionally, the United Nations recorded more than 200 violations against journalists in Afghanistan in 2022, including arbitrary arrest, ill-treatment, threats and intimidation.

Against that backdrop Oglu said, journalists in Afghanistan are “suffering from low morale.”

“We don’t feel safe anymore,” he told VOA.

Beh Lih Yi, the Asia program coordinator at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, told VOA that media freedom in Afghanistan “has gone from bad to worse.”

The Taliban’s return had a “devastating effect” on media who are “struggling to survive,” she said.

Scores of radio and TV stations have ceased operating, with some estimates that more than 6,000 journalists are no longer able to work.

Some, like Kabul-based Maryam Hotak, face the double pressure of being a journalist and a woman.

Hotak worked for eight years with two local radio stations – Arakozia and Killid – as well as at the Chinese state media CCTV. But she lost her job at the latter earlier in January, when CCTV failed to renew her contract.

“It has become impossible for women to work as journalists in Afghanistan,” said Hotak.

The journalist said she had a contract with the Beijing operation, which has expanded its network in several countries including Afghanistan in recent years.

Hotak would send her reports to an editor in Afghanistan but, she says, that editor told her that a manager in China had said her reports were negative and that she “should be filing positive reports.”

“I told them that the situation is like that. Is it a positive news story if women are not going to school? Women cannot work and have to stay at home,” Hotak said. “Can I say that they are happy? I can’t. How can they be happy? And, how can I report it in a positive way.”

Taliban regulations on women already make it hard to work, she said.

“The Taliban don’t want to be interviewed by women journalists. Women are not allowed to attend press conferences. They are forced to wear masks on air,” Hotak said.

She added that women are not allowed to enter government buildings without mahram, a close male relative.

“I was stopped many times by the Taliban at the gates of the government organizations. They told me, ‘We will not allow you if there is no mahram with you.’”

Hotak said she wanted to work with a nongovernmental organization, but the Taliban banned women from working in that field. So now she stays at home with her mother and sister, who lost their government jobs after the takeover.

“I don’t have any right in this country. I can’t go to school, to university, and I am not allowed to work,” Hotak said. “I am not seen as a human being, Therefore, I don’t see any reason to stay in this country.”

The Taliban have imposed repressive measures on women in Afghanistan, including banning them from work, secondary and university education, and unaccompanied long-distance travel.

VOA’s request for comment from the Taliban sent via messaging app received no response.

Oglu is also concerned about his future – and that of his chosen profession.

“I am concerned about media. I am concerned about my colleagues, and I am concerned about journalism in the country,” he said.

The reporter said family and friends have suggested he move to Iran, but for the moment, he has declined.

“Until now, I kept my grounds, but I don’t know about the future,” he said.

This story originated in VOA’s Afghan service.
…

Authorities in northwestern Pakistan said Thursday that militants had staged a gun-and-bomb attack on a police outpost, killing three security force members. 

The banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the deadly nighttime raid in the Khyber district, bordering Afghanistan. 

The district police chief, Imran Khan, told reporters that at least four heavily armed assailants, including a suicide bomber, stormed the premises in what he said was a “coordinated attack” and inflicted the casualties.  

“They opened fire and lobbed hand grenades at police officers before a suicide bomber blew himself up. His accomplices later managed to escape,” Khan said.  

The TTP claimed in a statement that a lone suicide bomber was behind the raid on the police post, though the group often releases inflated details about its attacks.  

The Pakistani Taliban have been waging a deadly insurgency in the country for more than 15 years to impose what they call an “Islamic system” in Pakistan, killing tens of thousands of people. 

In November, the TTP called off a monthslong shaky cease-fire with the government, disrupting peace talks between the two adversaries and leading to an intensification in militant attacks across the country.  

The talks were brokered and hosted by Afghanistan’s Islamist Taliban after they regained control of the war-torn country in August 2021. 

The TTP is an offshoot and a close ally of the Afghan Taliban. Its leadership has taken refuge on Afghan soil, which Islamabad says is a source of tensions in its otherwise cordial relations with Kabul.  

The United States has listed the Pakistani Taliban as a global terrorist organization.
…

From Lafayette Park in front of the White House to the streets of London, Toronto and many other cities around the world, activists have been staging small protests to condemn the Taliban’s repressive policies against women in Afghanistan and call for a stronger international response.

While they attract a relatively small number of participants, the protests have increased in frequency over the last year, largely in response to growing Taliban restrictions on women inside Afghanistan.

On January 14, fewer than 100 protesters showed up at Farragut Square Park in Washington to chant slogans against the Taliban’s recent edict banning universities and work for Afghan girls and women. On the same day, about three dozen protesters gathered in heavy rain in Los Angeles, making similar demands.

“In Los Angeles, we called for an end to the gender apartheid instilled by the Taliban,” Arash Azizada, an Afghan American community organizer, told VOA.

The protests take place as women and civil society activists inside Afghanistan have gone silent under Taliban rule.

‘We want to be their voices’

Human rights groups accuse Taliban authorities of forcefully banning protests, detaining and torturing activists, and censoring the media. The Taliban strongly reject the allegations and instead claim they have freed the country from a U.S. invasion.

The protesters outside Afghanistan say they show solidarity with Afghan women whose rights are being crushed under the Taliban’s undemocratic rule.

“We want to be their voices. We want to be their bridge to the world,” said Asila Wardak, a former Afghan diplomat and now a fellow at Harvard University who participated in several protests in the U.S.

The Afghan protesters are part of a widespread global chorus that demands the Taliban immediately reverse restrictions imposed on women’s work and education in Afghanistan.

But the Taliban have remained defiant, giving no clarity about when or whether the will be lifted.

“Anti-government protests outside the country that the government controls (e.g., anti-Iranian government protests that take place in Washington) do not seem to have much impact in the country that the protests concern,” Thomas Carothers of the Global Protest Tracker at the Carnegie Endowment told VOA by email.

“Repressive governments are usually able to control news of such events,” he said.

While U.S. and European officials have often voiced support for Afghan women and have imposed travel and economic sanctions on Taliban leaders and institutions, protesters say the international community should undertake meaningful action to dissuade and disable the Taliban from depriving millions of women of their basic rights.

“Just issuing statements of solidarity with Afghan women is not enough,” said Wardak. “The international community should facilitate opportunities for Afghan women to directly engage the Taliban and demand accountability.”

Azizzada, an activist in Los Angeles, said a meaningful response to the Taliban’s perceived misogyny would be for the U.S. and its Western allies to offer more asylum and educational opportunities for Afghans.

“If Afghan girls cannot learn in Afghanistan, they should be allowed to do so in the United States or elsewhere,” Azizzada said.

Local voices

Since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, more than 150,000 Afghans, among them many women leaders and activists, have been evacuated or given asylum in the U.S., Canada and European countries.

Many evacuees have engaged in high-profile advocacy for change in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Some activists have received prestigious awards and fellowships at elite universities, giving them a bully pulpit from which to write for and appear in prominent media outlets.

Now there are concerns that the activists in the Western countries are given too much attention at the cost of women inside Afghanistan.

“Efforts outside of Afghanistan should complement the activism of those inside the country and not hijack the narrative and present unrealistic solutions,” said Obaidullah Baheer, a Kabul analyst.

Even while women are not allowed to advocate for their rights inside Afghanistan, Baheer said, “it should not mean that their voices be ignored.”

That Afghan women have continued to suffer under the Taliban, despite protests and advocacy outside Afghanistan, is not disputed by some prominent activists.

“I believe that protests have impacts on the situation,” Zarifa Ghafari, a former Afghan official who now advocates for Afghan women’s rights from Germany, told VOA. “But I do not have confidence in the scattered gatherings by Afghans, and you have not seen any positive result over the past one and one-half years.”

Taliban officials have largely ignored the Afghan protests abroad or labeled the protesters as Western puppets.

Inside Afghanistan, however, nearly all Afghans have rated their lives as “suffering,” and a majority have said that women are disrespected under the Taliban, according to a recent Pew survey.

 
…

A major Indian journalist group urged the government to reject a proposal to police fake news on social media, saying such a change to the country’s information-technology rules would be akin to censorship.

The proposal would bar social media platforms from hosting any information that the authorities identify as false, the latest in a slew of measures by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government that are being seen as efforts to rein in big tech firms.

Information deemed “fake or false” by the Press Information Bureau or by any other agency authorized for fact-checking by the government would be prohibited under the draft amendment issued on Tuesday.

The Editors Guild of India, in a statement on Wednesday evening, urged the government to scrap the proposal and begin “meaningful consultations” with stakeholders on the regulatory framework for digital media.

Saying the “determination of fake news cannot be in the sole hands of the government,” the guild warned that the amendment would “make it easier to muzzle the free press” and “force online intermediaries to take down content that the government may find problematic.”

“This will stifle legitimate criticism of the government and will have an adverse impact on the ability of the press to hold governments to account, which is a vital role it plays in a democracy,” it said.
…